Runes of Magic is a free mmorpg, similar in style to World of Warcraft, although probably not as good. (I've never played Wow properly, only the free trial.)

 

 

 

I've seen a little bit of discussion about it here, but the search found no topics.

 

 

 

Although it's still in beta (open beta I think), I'm actually really getting into it.

 

The gameplay is pretty addictive, it's mainly quest driven, with the primary way of getting levels and advancing the game is through quests.

 

There are also skills, such as woodcutting, cooking and crafting. I've barely touched them, but I get the impression they take more of a backseat in gameplay, unlike RuneScape, for example, which is highly skills driven.

 

 

 

I'm currently a Rogue, with my secondary class as priest.

 

Rogues are pretty fun, very speaky but quick with high DPS. They also have cool skills like instantly stepping behind the enemy, so you can use a back attack with critical damage. You can also use poisons and dual wield daggers.

 

 

 

The download client is largeish, around 3.5GB. Also it seems a lot of people have trouble with updating the patches and connecting to servers. I had some trouble, but now it works fine.

 

 

 

For a free game (so far, not sure if they have plans to make it p2p) it's pretty decent. The graphics on maximum settings are quite nice, it has this strange ethereal glow to it, makes it looks very picturesque and pastel-like.

 

 

 

Overall I'd say it's a fairly competent game, can't wait for it to come out officially.

 

 

 

Only one thing lets this game down for me so far: it has more spelling mistakes than a 14 year old Californian teenage girl's myspace page.

 

Seriously, it's horrible. I'm part Grammar Nazi, and I die a little inside when I'm reading the quest information from an NPC and it's filled with 'don;t' and 'mnoster'.

 

 

 

Opinions?

I played it for a week or two, it's on the better side of free MMORPGs. I didn't quit because it sucked or anything. It's actually pretty good. I simply don't have time anymore. (Well, I do, I'd just rather play other games)

 

I was a rogue/mage, probably not the smartest combo but a blend of my two favorites.

 

I said it was really similar to RuneScape in the Darkfall thread, and I still think it is. However, unlike Runescape's click-point-wait combat system, it's your normal MMORPG system. Still not as great as real-time combat, but much better than RuneScape. The gathering skills and stuff really are what makes it that much like RuneScape (Besides the name...), you basically spend some time gathering resources, then you go to a certain area where you refine them or something.

 

It is in Open Beta, and I expect a lot of things to be fixed, especially the English. One time, I was given a quest in Chinese. I managed to get the gist of it, but seriously? And another time, it told me to kill x monster in x location, which was actually completely incorrect. Wasted a ton of time on that.

 

The graphics are actually quite good, the first major city (Forget its name) actually feels/looks quite a lot like a city. The first time I rode my horse through its gates, I felt like Gandalf riding Shadowfax up the streets of Minas Tirith. :P

 

(For the record, it is basically a Korean grindfest, but that shouldn't be surprising)

How grind driven is it? Its a total off-putter to me when by the time i reach level 30 its taking me 2-4 hours to get each level.

 

 

 

Also, got any screenshots?

Grind driven? It's a quest grind, lol. Not to mention you have to somehow divide quests up evenly for both of your classes.

 

 

 

WoW clone + duo-class + free = Not so much fun game if you've got better things to do.

 

 

 

Was my interpretation of the first 30 levels.

Yeah, you basically level up by doing quests.

 

The quests are nothing special, your usual "kill x of x" or "go talk to y".

 

Skatedog, if you didn't realize, you can access a special area after you get your second class. Apparently you're suppose to use the quests there to level up your secondary class, while using the ones in the normal world for your primary.

 

Screenshots? Here are some.

 

[hide=Taken by me][/hide]

 

Better than RuneScape's, that's for sure. ;)

Skatedog, if you didn't realize, you can access a special area after you get your second class. Apparently you're suppose to use the quests there to level up your secondary class, while using the ones in the normal world for your primary.

 

Under-developed is all I can say about 'that' place.

^Someones a perfectionist.